: Minister for Youth Services and Sports, Satish Sharma, visited Khelo India Soft Tennis (ST) Centre, M A Stadium, and had an interactive session with the promising soft tennis players there.
The Minister also congratulated the players, Sidhani Singh, Soham Bhat and Shrimai Bhat, who recently participated in the Junior Soft Tennis World Championship held at Jingshang, China. He appreciated the players for their excellent performance in the International tournament and assured that this promising sports will be supported in all respects. He also commended the dedication of International coach and mentor, Indu Bhushan, who in a very short span of time has prepared the players of high caliber.
Satish Sharma, while elaborating various initiatives aiming sports promotion in J&K, said that the Omar Abdullah led government is keenly exploring all possibilities to encourage the talented athletes in the potential sports. He affirmed that the competent players would be provided all requisite facilities and platform enabling them to exhibit their exceptional sporting talent at national and international events.
Indu Bhushan also apprised the Minister of scope and potential of Soft Tennis game which is popularizing among the sports lovers very fast. He informed that launched in 2004 in India, the game has gained huge momentum in almost every state and UT of the nation. This unique game, similar to Lawn Tennis, is being played in the Asian games where India has won medals as well. Also, the process for inclusion of Soft Tennis in the Olympics is also being done by the ST Federation of India.
The players requested the Minister to intervene in the matter of including Soft Tennis among the sports disciplines in the job SRO, besides establishment of Soft Tennis Courts in the state land available at Bhagwati Nagar.